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Is it Time For Notre Dame football to Join a Conference?

By Daniel Morrison

SOUTH BEND, IN - AUGUST 30: The mural at the Hesburgh Library, commonly known as "Touchdown Jesus" is seen on the campus of Notre Dame University before a game between the Norte Dame Fighting Irish and the Rice Owls at Notre Dame Stadium on August 30, 2014 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - AUGUST 30: The mural at the Hesburgh Library, commonly known as "Touchdown Jesus" is seen on the campus of Notre Dame University before a game between the Norte Dame Fighting Irish and the Rice Owls at Notre Dame Stadium on August 30, 2014 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /
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Notre Dame football
Apr 13, 2019; Notre Dame, IN, USA; Notre Dame Football helmets sit on the field following the Blue-Gold Game at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports /

The Notre Dame football program is still playing Independent football but is it time for the Irish to finally join a conference.

The Notre Dame football program is one of the premier programs in all of college football, and they are one of the few who still play Independent football. Recently, things have been changing all across college football, bringing up the question of whether or not the Irish should play in a conference moving forward.

If you have not been living under a rock, you probably know where all this is going. If you have, let’s catch up. It has come out that Texas and Oklahoma have been working back channels to try and leave the Big 12 for the SEC.

Texas A&M is adamant that they don’t want it to happen, but it appears they don’t have the votes within the SEC to stop it. Most SEC schools look at the two as a major increase in TV revenue, while SEC commissioner quoting Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A Changing at SEC media days feels a little too on the nose now.

For their part, the Big 12 is ultimately powerless to keep them from leaving once their media deal expires.

This is obviously bad news for the Big 12, who relies on Texas and Oklahoma for most of their media value. In essence, an eight-team league where Oklahoma State, West Virginia, or TCU is your major media earner is not a power conference.

So, there are two options for those teams.

Find a new conference, or aggressively expand the Big 12 with invitations to new schools. This would likely mean the AAC and Mountain West get poached into relative non-existence…or their own scramble to poach teams. Rinse, wash, repeat.

For their part, the SEC would officially be a 16-team superconference. They’d be a media giant, almost untouchable in the sport. Other conferences would need to keep up. At this point, joining the B1G 10 or ACC will probably sound better to those remaining Big 12 teams than trying to rebuild from the ashes.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame football is still Independent. After COVID-19 forced Notre Dame football to join a conference for one season, they left as quickly as possible. The last major realignment, which saw the world of college football shift, didn’t force them into a conference.

Now, with College Football Playoff expansion on the horizon, new rules around player NIL, and a rapidly changing landscape, the question is going to come up again. Is it time for Notre Dame football to join a conference, or can they go on being Independent?

So, let’s dive into the arguments for and against Notre Dame football staying Independent going forward.

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